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First Litmus Test on Drug Involvement for Clemens

It will be more than five years until Hall of Fame voters weigh in on whether accusations of steroid use have tainted Roger Clemens’s career. But Clemens will get an early referendum on where he stands from six high school coaches in Texas.

On Tuesday, the executive board of the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association plans to meet to decide whether to remove Clemens as a speaker at the organization’s convention in Waco, Tex., next month.

“The only thing I can say is that the officers are having a meeting tomorrow and we will discuss the situation at that time,” Rex Sanders, the executive director of the coaches association, said in a telephone interview. “We will discuss the impact that he might have speaking here and so forth. Our No. 1 concern is that our association is 100 percent against any type of steroid use.”

Sanders said some board members had been in contact with Clemens but declined to discuss the specifics of the conversations.

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A Texas coaches association plans to discuss whether to remove Roger Clemens as a speaker at its convention.Credit
Barton Silverman/The New York Times

George J. Mitchell’s report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball included statements from Clemens’s former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, that he had injected Clemens with steroids on numerous occasions.

Meanwhile, Lance Berkman, who played with Clemens on the Houston Astros from 2004 to 2006, said Monday that the admission Saturday by Andy Pettitte that he used human growth hormone had put pressure on Clemens to address the issue.

“I’m not insinuating the allegations are true just because Pettitte came out and said the trainer was telling the truth about him,” Berkman said, according to The Houston Chronicle’s Web site. “I’m just saying it puts more pressure on the Clemens camp to specifically deny charges.

“I don’t think it’s good enough to make a blanket statement and say the guy’s lying. Now that Andy’s come out, that certainly puts a little more pressure to come out and make a more detailed statement.”

Outside one of his son’s schools in Piney Point City, Tex., Clemens refused to address the accusations. “I’m not talking to y’all about it,” Clemens said, according to The New York Post and The New York Daily News’ Web sites. “We’ll handle this our way.”